operation OCD

Recently, a coworker asked if I could finish an aran sweater she'd had sitting around for months. Of course I said yes...and here it is, partially assembled. The sweater is a little unusual because it has saddle shoulders, but I figured it out pretty easily. After all, it is my job! Now I'm well into the collar knitting and then the rest of it should go pretty fast (just side seams and tacking down the collar...oh, and all those ends). As the owner of 5 partially finished sweaters, I completely sympathize with the "let somebody else finish this" mentality. Sometimes you just can't look at them anymore. (Especially if the project was arduous and/or annoying, the last bit of work can be torture.)

I'm keeping track of the time it takes me to get this done, so far sewing the shoulders and knitting the collar (halfway) has taken just over an hour and a half. The bad part is that I get far more anxious about working on other people's knitting projects than I do my own. I normally have a pretty cavalier attitude towards my knitting (a post regarding this to follow), but when it belongs to somebody else I get very afraid that something will go wrong. Unlike many things in my life, I am absolutely convinced that I am capable when it comes to knitting; however, finishing work catapults me into an entirely different level of OCD and I want it all to be perfect. Thus I spend lots and lots of time examining all my work to make sure it looks right. Wish me luck- so far, so good.